Off the bike and on the streets

This morning, I went downstairs to do my aerobic workout and found out the seat adjustment on the exercise bike was jammed. I couldn't get it to move and I couldn't use the bike with the seat in the position it was in. (I'm six inches taller than Cheryl and I'm have long legs for my height, so her height setting is way way way too low for me.)

I messed with it for awhile, but I couldn't get it to move. I thought about using the jogging trampoline instead, but I can never get a good workout on that thing. So, I grabbed a jacket and headed out the door.

Our house is half a mile from the Missouri river in a very hilly area. We are at the top of a hill that's not quite half a mile long. From the bottom, it starts out steep, then levels off to a shallow uphill, and then gets steep again. So I warmed up by heading down the hill at a fast walk and, after two minutes, I started jogging. I turned around at four minutes and jogged up the hill. At six minutes, I turned back downhill. I did the next three intervals the same way. Then I did a short cool down. I removed the jacket about half way through and I was sweating by the time I was done even though the air temperature wasn't even 50 degrees F. I feel like I got a good workout, although I didn't have control of the various levels like I would on the bike. I must say, the twenty minutes went by a lot faster than they do on the stationary bike.

After years as a distance runner and recreational jogger, I quit because my knees were giving me problems. So I was concerned that my legs might not be up to a hill workout. But I was able to do the whole twenty minutes with no joint pain. But by far the best thing about taking my new slimmer body out on the street was that there's no stomach shaking up and down like ziploc bag of pudding. What little abdominal fat I have mostly stays put. Likewise, my legs and (dare I say it) my butt have much less extra material to jiggle around than they used to. And I wasn't even embarassed that I was running in biking shorts.

The halfway point in the challenge is this coming Monday. We'll be doing our eight week pictures two weeks from this Sunday. We're going to try to do a real photo shoot for the eight week pictures to get ready for the final photo shoot at twelve weeks. It seems like it's going by fast. But I'm having fun, which was part of my plan from the beginning.